


sometimes you're shooting broken arrows in the dark

by phae



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bondage, Canon-Typical Violence, Deaf Clint Barton, Developing Relationship, Dom/sub, Fluff and Angst, Hand Feeding, Hydra (Marvel), Kink Negotiation, Light BDSM, M/M, Safewords, Subdrop, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2018-08-13 08:41:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7969948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phae/pseuds/phae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Clint's got this theory, and he might just be projecting or something, but what it boils down to is this: Bucky could maybe potentially be a dominant-minded individual of the gentle persuasion. Like, in the making. Unless he was into some of it before and doesn't remember it just yet, which is always a possibility. Steve's basically the leading expert on all things Bucky at the moment, and chances are that if Bucky was running around domming back in the day, Steve didn't know about it. Unless they were--no, if Clint lets his imagination wander down that route, he'll be following it for ages.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>And all right, so it's a long shot. But since when has Clint not been willing to take those?</i></p><p> </p><p>Or, Bucky and Clint's Road to Recovery wrapped up in the trappings of a budding D/s relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Aviicii's _Broken Arrows_.
> 
> Please check out [hawkeyesuggestions'](http://hawkeyesuggestions.tumblr.com) beautiful artwork [over here on tumblr](http://hawkeyesuggestions.tumblr.com/post/150193760232/my-piece-for-the-winterhawk-big-bang-skinda)!

Clint's life is beyond surreal. And it's not 'cause of the fact that he can legitimately list both Coerced Ally of Alien Invasion and Defender Against Same Alien Invasion on his resume these days. Though, that is why he's walking the streets of New York sporting ridiculously bulky sunnies and a t-shirt so distractingly neon that people are more inclined to glance away than check out the guy wearing it.

 

No, it's more due to the super soldier walking next to him, wearing a hoodie even though it's plenty warm for Spring because otherwise his cybernetic arm would kind of be a dead giveaway as to who they are, his hair pulled back in a messy fishtail braid. And to be more specific, the surrealism mostly comes into play because they're walking side-by-side, too close for general comfort, his left hand just barely brushing the fingers of James's right as they step in time seeing as, although they'd _like_ to be holding hands, they both agree that the tactical disadvantages far outweigh the giddy butterflies they get low in their bellies out of it (or, well, at least Clint gets the butterflies; he's guessing James gets them too because he tends to smile down at their hands all dopey-like when they've got their fingers laced).

 

Even more, Clint's pretty sure they're, like, _official_ now. Not that they've labelled anything yet, and it's not like he can go creep on James's status updates to see where he's leaning on the whole thing 'cause they haven't even touched on a social media intro yet. But still, Clint's a good 80-85% sure he could bat his eyes and smile all hopeful-like to get James to agree to letting him tweet a selfie of them kissing or something. Mainly because James says Clint looks so achingly pathetic when he pulls that face that saying no would be like putting a soaked kitten outside in the middle of winter, but whatever. He knows how to pick his battles and work with what he's got.

 

So yeah, Clint Barton, your life is practically a teen novel these days. What are the chances?

 

A hard knock to his shoulder jolts Clint back to the present as James steps even closer so that they're practically plastered to each other's sides as they amble down the sidewalk. "Hey, stop going off where I can't follow."

 

Snorting, Clint bumps his hip against James's and teases, "Would it make you feel better if I said you were right there with me?"

 

"Sap." And James may roll his eyes at Clint, he may huff in exasperation, but he still snakes his pinkie around Clint's to keep him close, so who's the real sap here, huh?

 

Trick question. It's both of them, Clint thinks with a dopey grin spreading his cheeks out wide.

 

James stutter-steps, and it's just enough to barely put him ahead of Clint, a position where it's easiest to simply follow in James's wake through the throngs of gaping tourists and disgruntled locals. Clint squeezes the finger wrapped with his own and lets his focus wander to up above them while James covers their immediate surroundings. It's surprisingly comfortable, to trust him to keep on eye on where they're going while Clint catalogs any possible threats they might be passing. His eyes flick from "hidden" security cameras, to vulnerabilities along the rooftops, to the occasional pigeon flapping past.

 

He doesn't bother looking down again until James tugs on his pinkie before slipping away to dodge around another couple too tied up in gazing longingly into one another's eyes to realize where they're walking. Instead of stepping back up to Clint's side, though, James skirt around the edge of a huddled group of tourists and makes a beeline for a little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop. Well, as hole-in-the-wall as any crowded coffee shop in NYC gets, i.e. it's not a Starbucks. James has _opinions_ about Starbucks coffee, and Clint's generally inclined to agree.

 

An extra skip in his step now that a caffeine pit stop is imminent, Clint eagerly trails James inside, shuffling into the winding line as he glances up at the brightly colored menu board up top.

 

"You in the mood for anything in particular?" Clint asks absently while skimming over the options. "I'm debating iced versus hot, 'cause in this weather, you really can't go wrong with either. So it really comes down to: do I wanna savor it for awhile? In which case, I need it hot so I'll just sip at it. Or do I need all my espresso _now_? Which, you know, means iced so I can chug it."

 

Ahead of him, James hums noncommittally. His gaze wanders over the menu board lazily, and his hands are lax where he's now got them curled in the pocket of his hoodie. Grinning, Clint props his chin on James's shoulder and whispers huskily, "You mocha me crazy!"

 

James's face contorts half a second later like he's trying to cringe but can't help but smile at the same time. Clint's pretty damn good at getting that kind of reaction out of people, if he does say so himself. "That was… _awful._ "

 

Clint rocks back on his heels with a happy hum. "I think you mean _inspired_."

 

"Inspired by every other awful pun that comes outta that mouth, maybe," James grumbles.

 

Clint beams back at him brightly and moves forward as the line jostles into motion. At the edge of his peripheral, which is pretty stellar by human standards if he does say so himself, he catches the sudden movement of a customer over in the corner where the restroom sign hangs.

 

It's always been automatic for his attention to shift quickly, first born from the instincts of a childhood spent trying to dodge drunken blows, then the ever-growing paranoia of a kid in well over his head after getting caught up in the seedy underbelly of circus life, and later as the honed reflex of a trained agent who's just doing his due diligence. These days, a lot of it is rooted in his deep-seated protective tendencies, the ones he's spent a lifetime trying to downplay because people have always been quick to take advantage of them. Being basically a superhero these days, though, it serves him pretty well to let his latent impulses run their course.

 

And so his head swivels around to see what might be the cause of the commotion--spider on the wall? An unfortunately placed coffee spill?--but the rest of his body isn't too worried about it, no tenser than normal when he's surrounded by a room full of strangers.

 

Except then the lady in the corner, who'd just shot up out her chair, making it screech hard and shrill against the tile floor, flips her table over, laptop and coffee going right along with it, and ducks back behind it.

 

Clint doesn't let himself stop to process what's happening behind him. He doesn't try and search out the threat since going by her reaction, it's too late to stop it. He just grabs the sleeve of James's hoodie, yanks him down in front of Clint, shouts to the room at large to _"Get down!"_ and dives forward to the ground himself, dragging as many civilians ahead of them in line down with him as he can reach.

 

Clint more feels than hears the windows lining the storefront implode, a high-pitched frequency accompanying the attack that screws with even his ridiculously high-tech hearing aids. A hot rush of air washes over his back, knocking him flat with the force of a car running a red light. He's left breathless, sprawled over top James, who's squirming around in an attempt to get out from under him. He's vaguely aware of sporadic stinging pains arching up his back--glass? It's probably glass. Maybe even some hefty wood splinters if the windows decided to drag the tables along with them. He tries to cough, to force his lungs to expand just that little bit to get him breathing again--

 

And that's when a concussion grenade rolls past and explodes.

 

Clint's whole world whites out, or maybe that's just his ears, it's hard to tell. The grenade's blast packs enough punch to throw him off James, and then he's flying through the air 'til something catches him. It's none too gentle about it, and his head cracks back against something too solid to budge. It's a fair while before he can comprehend much of anything else.

 

Next thing he's really aware of, there's dust and debris floating down around his face. The acrid smell of smoke intermingling with the cloying stench of burnt flesh is thick in the air. The world's not dulled down to that muffled state he's used to when he takes out his aids or switches them off. Instead it's like he's stuck inside the heart of a cast iron bell, everything eerily silent and ear-splintering loud at the same time, his body high-tuned to even the most minute vibrations around him.

 

Raising a shaky hand, Clint reaches up to check if his aids are even still there, but the second he makes contact, he has to jerk his hand away 'cause a spike of debilitating pain shoots straight through his skull. His vision blurs for a second, and he's just staring down at his hand dumbfounded for at least three beats too many, trying to figure out why the blob that's his hand looks more red than tan.

 

The fuck is going on--?

 

_James!_

 

Clint lurches forward and a sickening wave of vertigo hits, but he powers through it, has to, because James was under him a minute ago, was moving and breathing and _safe_ , but now he's gone, and Clint has to _find him_.

 

He manages to get turned over so he can at least get his knees under him, crawling unsteadily over what's left of the counter, the mangled bits of tile, and-- _shit_ \--prone bodies. He fumbles back to his pocket for his phone, and thank fucking miracles that it's still in one piece. He holds his thumb over the embedded A on the back, waiting for it to vibrate in his hand indicating a live connection to JARVIS.

 

Clint starts talking as soon as it does, and the disconnect between _knowing_ he's speaking out loud but not being able to _hear himself_ is all the worse with the pain in his head, the noticeable scratchiness of his throat, and the fact that he can't even feel his own words rumbling in his chest like usual. He's not even really sure what he's saying, 'cause half his brain's trying to remember all the salient details of where they are--did they take a right at 16th? No, no, left. They went left--but the panicked, much more prevalent half has him screaming out for James every other breath, so who knows if JARVIS can even make sense of it all.

 

The dust in the air is slowly thinning out, letting Clint get a bead on things slightly further ahead, but he's only got a few yards of visibility in any one direction. There's still plenty in the air to get stuck in his throat while he's screaming, though, and he's cut off from calling out for James again by a hacking cough. He wipes at his eyes to try and brush away the tears gathering in the corners, but all he really manages is to spread more dirt across his face.

 

Squeezing his eyes shut for a long moment to ward off the worst of the stinging, he opens them again and catches spastic movements through the haze in the air. He scrambles forward, dropping down onto his forearms to keep his upper body supported because the floor is riddled with glass shards that are already cutting deep into the meat of his palms, and he doesn't want to leave his phone and lose his one connection to reinforcements, even it's essentially a one-way line.

 

A few feet further and he's close enough to make out what's happening up ahead--it's James, still on the ground, but fighting to get up, at least--

 

He's struggling against something, his arms pinned while his legs are kicking out wildly, but there's nobody else near him that Clint can see, and definitely no one near enough to be keeping him down. He tries to call out for him again, but Bucky doesn't even look towards him, he's too busy snarling at something, still fighting, and Clint can see his lips moving furiously, but the air's still too cloudy for even his impeccable eyesight to pick out the finer details.

 

Abruptly, all James's movements cease. And not like they petered off 'cause he got too tired to keep it up. No, one second his limbs are flailing, and the next he just goes limp.

 

Clint's heartbeat stutters and skips, then picks back up with a painfully frantic beat as he desperately scuttles forward. He needs to get to James, needs to check him over for--what? Was he shot? Clint didn't see his body jerk against a bullet, but what else could've cut him down so quickly?

 

Except--James moves again. It's slow and deliberate, the way he bends up from the waist until he's sitting in the middle of the ruined coffee shop, placidly staring ahead.

 

Confused, Clint glances in the direction James is looking and sees another figure advancing on James. It's just a silhouette at first, distorted by all the debris in the air, but Clint can tell that the person is holding a weapon, aiming a gun at James and moving in on him while he just _sits there_.

 

Clint frantically looks around him, his free hand dropping to the floor and sweeping out looking for anything he can use as a reliable projectile to take down the assailant or at least get the gun out of that person's hand. His right hand catches on a large shard of glass, slicing it open. Clint hisses, can feel the breath quickly squeezing past his lips as he winces, and the pain is just enough to smack his common sense back into him.

 

He's armed. He's always armed.

 

No bow 'cause it's too obvious when he's not on a mission. No gun since Bucky was packing plenty. But he's got knives stashed all over--[sleek throwing knives](http://www.trueswords.com/black-ronin-etched-throwing-knives-p-6179.html), perfect for disarming and even killing from a certain distance.

 

His right hand's too slick with blood to throw accurately, so Clint moves his phone over, grasping it with just his slippery fingers, and reaches back with his left. He slides one of his spear-pointed knives from the make-shift sheath in his boot and palms it expertly.

 

Instinct takes over then, driving out the protocols that have been trained into him to disarm first and gather intel, and he starts to draw his arm back, aim adjusting towards the assailant's neck, but he's pulled up short by a sudden and sharp pain in his shoulder. Gritting his teeth, Clint pushes himself up to his knees for better leverage and throws the knife, relying on the momentum coming from the bend of his elbow and the flick of his wrist, awkward as it feels. It flips cleanly through the air and embeds in the giving flesh of the person's neck, severing their carotid artery more smoothly than cutting butter.

 

The body slumps to the ground, and Clint inches forward with a weary eye trained on it, looking for the tell-tale twitches of a person's dying breaths. The spill of long hair is the first true detail he can make out, then the lithe but small frame. It takes a moment for the image to really register in Clint's sluggish mind, but he recognizes her, the woman who'd ducked before the attack started--was she a plant? Who the hell was attacking them so out in the open like this?

 

Finally close enough to touch, Clint reaches forward with a grimace and finds no pulse. Before he can breath a sigh of relief, though, he's startled when his phone is shot out of his blood-slick grip, wheeling him around and away with the jerk of it.

 

Things crystallize then in a way he's well used to. It all lines up in Clint's head automatically: the projected angle of the bullet embedded in the reinforced casing of his Starkphone that's now cracked and blinking despondently from the slab of concrete next to him, the general velocity behind it required to get _through_ that casing, how far away the shooter then has to be given that it's a 9mm bullet and therefore came from a handgun. Clint turns, his left hand already at his back pulling a hidden throwing knife from the sheath sewn in to the waistband of his jeans. He moves too fast, his vision blurs again, the floor slips out from under him, and a sudden queasiness hits his stomach. But there's a lifetime of experience guiding him now, muscle memory overriding all the sensory overload, and the knife flies out of his hand with a deft snap of his wrist before he can even get his eyes to cooperate and focus on his target.

 

His knife knocks the shooter's gun away by the expedient method of slicing across the exposed knuckles on the grip. Unfortunately, it turns out James's the one shooting at him.

 

_Shit._

 

"James, what're you--"

 

Except James unearths a knife of his own, flips it in his cybernetic hand, and executes a textbook throw aimed right for Clint's center mass. Clint barely dodges, openly gaping at James, and that's when it hits him--he's not facing James right now. That's the Winter Soldier giving him the thousand-yard stare, stalking across the rubble littering the floor as the plates in his arm rotate and resettle menacingly.

 

And yeah, so he's a little slow on the uptake, but his eardrums were just blown-- _again_ \--and he's probably got a concussion on top of a whole mess of other concussions, so sue him.

 

" _James_ ," Clint entreats, trying to push every ounce of emotion he can wring from his bones into the words and praying that his tone conveys that, that he's not just rasping out into the void. "You gotta snap out of it! It's me, it's Clint. You're only gonna send yourself on a massive guilt trip if you hurt me, trust me on th--"

 

He chokes off as the Soldier wraps his metal fingers snug around Clint's neck and starts to squeeze, lifting Clint up onto the tips of his toes as he slowly pulls Clint off the ground, leaving him to dangle so his own weight does just as much harm as the hand clasped around his neck. Clint scrambles for a hold on the metal plates, but his hands keep sliding off, caked in so much blood and sweat.

 

"James!" Clint tries to push the words out, but his airway is closing, and the ringing in his ears has reached a shattering crescendo. There's no flicker of his James behind those dead-set eyes; they're grey still pools reflecting Clint's own frightened eyes right back at him. His vision is tunneling down, his lungs seizing up, his feet scrabbling for purchase fruitlessly--

 

The Soldier's about to put him down for the count, and James'll never forgive himself for that, so Clint has to keep trying, has to force some measure of sound past his lips until he's got no more breath to plead with. "James, please! Stop! James, bay--bay--"

 

James fades out of his sight slowly, bleaching away like watercolors on too wet paper, and Clint's last thought is how close the water streaming down the page resembles tears.


	2. Chapter One

Bucky stood in front of the massive refrigerator in the community kitchen with the double-wide doors flung open and the barest hint of a chill seeping into his front from the cooling system. The damned thing was packed wall-to-wall with virtually everything imaginable, from the basics of milk and eggs and bacon, to various containers of take-out, then to what he could only imagine was some kind of exotic fruit sliced and diced in a covered tupperware dish. Hell, there was a portable tank of live lobsters two feet to his right because apparently Ms. Potts was flying in soon, and lobsters were her favorite.

 

His eyes swept the cavern of readily available food slowly, back and forth, again and again. Nothing. Not a single thing he could decide on.

 

(Though there was plenty he'd scratched off the list without really considering why: a bowl of leftover potato salad, the bag of frozen french fries, the carton of microwavable mashed potatoes.)

 

Should he heat up some of the leftover pizza from last night? Except Thor and Barton seemed to live off of cold pizza, especially for breakfast, so he probably should leave that for them.

 

There was always cereal? But the milk jug was just about empty, and if he finished it off, he'd be responsible for replacing it, that was the rule right? And replacing it would mean going to the nearest store since he refused to place orders through Stark's automated delivery system, which would include leaving the Tower, and that--no.

 

He could make himself a sandwich--there was a whole drawer of fresh deli meats front and center. Of course, then he'd need condiments, and glancing to his left at the shelves on the door packed to bursting with bottles of ketchup and mustard and mayonnaise and dressings, jars of pickles and jams, tupperware containers of sliced tomatoes and onions and peppers and shredded lettuce--

 

It was too much.

 

Everything in the damned tower was all _too fucking much_.

 

Bucky's hands tightened around the fridge handles, his left crossing over the line and into Too Tight as he heard the faint creak of stainless steel giving way under the plates of his palm. He forcibly relaxed his grip, sucking in a deep breath of air through his nose, holding it for an 8-count, and letting it out gustily through his mouth.

 

Behind him, the elevator _dinged_ , which was actually just Stark's AI playing a recording of the sound for Bucky through the room's speakers. He'd lurked in the few blind spots he'd found in the AI's surveillance network long enough to know that the elevators never made a sound unless the damned thing knew Bucky was on the floor. No doubt, it was doing so on Stark's orders, giving plenty of warning to the traumatized assassin with personal space issues that people were fixing to enter the vicinity.

 

It was a moot point, though; Bucky didn't have any need for the heads up as he was always a little too aware of the tower's various residents' comings and goings.

 

Shoulders stiff, Bucky turned his head just enough that he could catch an angle on the elevator doors out of his periphery. Barton shuffled out into the open floorplan and made a beeline for the giant closet of a pantry without sparing Bucky a glance. Well, at least not that Bucky could see, but Barton was tricky like that, often looking in the opposite direction of where his attention was focused.

 

Bucky let a measured breath out through his nose and tried to ease the set of his shoulders. His eyes flicked back to the contents of the fridge, but it only spiked his anxiety further now that there was someone else lurking nearby, someone who would undoubtedly notice Bucky's inability to decide even if he wasn't likely to comment on it. Scowling, Bucky closed the doors with deliberate care and stalked across the kitchen to the large island in the center. He swiped an apple from the fruit bowl artfully arranged atop the encased screen interface, taking an unsatisfying bite and chewing by rout.

 

Barton emerged from the pantry with a bright blue package in hand, circling the island and slumping down onto one of the stools across from Bucky. He ripped open the plastic and pulled out a tray of cookies--chocolate chip from the looks of it--before picking up four of them and cramming them in his mouth all at the same time. Bucky could only stare in vague disgust as Barton chomped through the cookies noisily, crumbs dribbling from the corners of his mouth to lightly dust what was once a pristine counter.

 

His mouth still mostly full, Barton nudged the cookies over towards Bucky and asked, "Wan' one?"

 

_Not particularly_ , Bucky thought. But then again, he didn't particularly want _anything_ , so what did that matter?

 

Bucky reached out hesitantly for the tray, snatching up the closest cookie and bringing it up so he could nibble around the edge. Almost immediately, he turned his head and spat soggy cookie bits on the floor, racing over to the sink and sticking his mouth right under the faucet as he turned it on in a desperate bid to wash the awful taste of sandy, brittle cookie from his tongue.

 

It took Barton a few moments to react, or more likely to process Bucky's general brand of existence, but then he was hunching over in hysterics, smacking his hand on the counter top as he gasped for air between giggles and choking on his own cookies. "Oh god," he gasped out, holding up a cookie and waving it at Bucky. "Here, do it again! Eat another one."

 

Eyebrows drawing down into the kind of glare he usually reserved for scumbag Hydra lackeys, Bucky swiped the tray of cookies right off the counter and into the trashcan.

 

"Hey! What the hell dude!" Barton demanded, pulling back his hand to cradle the lone survivor and hunching over it protectively.

 

"Those aren't cookies," Bucky spat out around his scowl.

 

"Uh, _yeah_ , they are!" Barton replied with an affronted huff. "Well, at least they were. _Now_ they're trash cookies, which sucks, 'cause even I'm not about to eat outta that rank trashcan."

 

Letting up on an ounce of his irritation in the face of Barton's devastated pout, Bucky said coolly, "They're where they belong."

 

"Rude!" Barton's hand darted up to stuff the last cookie into his mouth, then kept talking around it. "Wha' m'I s'pposed to ea' now, huh?"

 

Bucky regarded Barton with a deadpan stare for a few moments before finally giving in with a sigh and stalking over to the pantry to start pulling out ingredients--flour, brown sugar, white sugar, baking soda, vanilla, chocolate chips.

 

He lined his findings up along the counter, evenly spaced, before beginning a systematic search of the surrounding cabinets in search of bowls, measuring cups, pans, and a whisk.

 

The scrape of metal chair legs sliding back on the sleek tiled floor sounded behind him. Bucky disguised the way his shoulders immediately tensed by pulling out a drawer a tad too forcefully and rifling through it for a spatula.

 

"Uh, what's happening here?"

 

"Cookies," Bucky gruffly responded, arranging the measuring cups in the order he'd need them.

 

(He was missing something, wasn't he? He used to park himself in front of the icebox when his ma was baking so he'd get to be the one pulling everything out, relishing the blast of chilly air when the kitchen got stuffy with the stove running.)

 

"Right," Barton drawled out, sauntering up so he could peek around Bucky as he started carefully siphoning out the ingredients. "'Cause you know how to bake?"

 

Bucky pulled up short at Barton's question, the bag of flour poised over the largest measuring cup. Did he know how to bake? He blinked down at all the ingredients spread out, waiting to be added to the mixing bowl, and realized yes, in fact, he did. For once, he had something entirely positive to jot down in his memory journal later. Huh.

 

Sidestepping Barton, Bucky opened the fridge without any of his earlier trepidation, his eyes zeroing in on first the tub of butter and then the carton of eggs. He scooped them up and circled back to his prep area, pointedly shoving Barton to the side to give himself room to work. "Ain't like it's hard."

 

"I mean, in theory, I guess?" Head tilted to the side and arms crossed over his chest, Barton was the spitting image of baffled bemusement. "But in practice…yeah, not so much. Baked stuff always burns too fast."

 

"Just how many batches a'cookies have you burned?" Bucky asked incredulously as he deftly cracked an egg on the edge of the bowl one-handed.

 

Barton slumped back against the counter, propping his elbows up behind him. "All of 'em," he replied, his tone dripping in doom and gloom.

 

Involuntarily, the corner of Bucky's mouth twitched up.

 

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. All those sad cookies, they had so much potential, you know?" Barton wallowed. "'Til I squashed it all."

 

"You mean sent it up in flames?" Bucky snarked.

 

"No actual flames. Just a lotta smoke." Ingredients all in the bowl, Bucky tossed the whisk in and shoved the bowl at Barton's chest, holding it there until he finally took it. Barton blinked down at it in confusion. "Uh…"

 

"You wanna eat the cookies, you help make the cookies."

 

"I'm not sure that's a good idea--"

 

"All you gotta do is stir. No baking involved." Barton still looked vaguely scared--of a bowl of goddamn cookie dough, of all things. "Get to mixing already," Bucky ordered. "Put those ridiculous arms to work."

 

Barton picked up the whisk by the very end hesitantly, poking at the ingredients in the bowl like they were about to come to life and attack his face in vengeance of their fallen brothers or some shit. "Eh, fabulous as my biceps are, they've got nothing on Cap and Thor's. Buzzfeed said so," he muttered dismissively.

 

"Too bad. They were both disqualified from the running on account of Super Human and Mythical God."

 

"Running for what?" He started chopping the whisk down in the dough like that'd do anything worthwhile. Bucky wrapped his hand around Clint's and set him to stirring around the edge in firm circles. "Hey, wait. You been checking out my gun show, Barnes?"

 

"Threat assessment," Bucky shot back, ignoring the rest of Barton's prattle as he backed off and began packing away the ingredients. "Don’t worry, you came in as the most harmless, that's how come you get to help."

 

"Harmless, my ass!" Barton screeched. "Which beats all y'all's, by the way! Well, yours wasn't part of the poll, but I'd still beat you anyway. And no comment on my legs? My thighs are nothing to scoff at." Barton threw in a wink with his last quip, smiling over at Bucky saucily.

 

Bucky let his eyes trail down Barton's body consideringly before he shrugged. "Eh, I've seen better."

 

"Yeah, in the mirror, maybe," Barton scoffed.

 

Rolling his eyes in place of a reply, Bucky plucked the bowl out of Barton's hand. He pinched the top off of a dough peak, ignoring the phantom sting on the back of his knuckles like a wooden spoon rapping across them, and licked it off his fingers with a faint hum. He offered the bowl back to Barton, who was still brandishing the whisk, held aloft in mid-stir.

 

Barton looked from Bucky to the bowl, then back again. A lascivious grin stretched wide across his face. "You gonna feed it to me?" His tone was teasing, but there was a calculated glint lurking in his eyes.

 

Nonplussed, Bucky dipped his fingers back in the bowl and smeared the dollop of dough down Barton's nose. Squawking at him in what Bucky could only assume was feigned outrage judging by the smile he was sporting, Barton darted a hand forward and snatched the bowl back, wrapping his arm around the rim securely.

 

In retaliation, Bucky expertly swapped Barton's whisk for a spoon. "Now you scoop. Roll 'em into balls, then put 'em on the cookie sheet. Three to a row, got it?"

 

"Yeah, yeah. I think I can--" Barton's first scoop of dough flew right off the spoon and onto the counter. "Not a word."

 

Bucky let his eyebrows do all the talking for him, and once he decided Barton looked appropriately cowed, pouting down at the bowl of dough and carefully scooping out a small amount, he left him to it and went about replacing what he'd pulled out for the cookies and collecting the other things he needed.

 

Pepperonis first, because for some odd reason, they were stashed in a drawer behind the silverware. He dropped them on the counter on his way to the pantry.

 

"So, either chocolate chip cookies have changed _a lot_ in the last seventy years, or you've been watching too many experimental cooking shows. And let me just tell you now, I don't care how _on trend_ it is to mix spicy and sweet, nothing spicy ever belongs in a dessert. Not letting you sully a classic here, Barnes!" Barton called after him, but Bucky paid him no mind.

 

Naan bread, olive oil and a jar of tomato sauce from the pantry, a bag of shredded mozzarella from the fridge, three bottles of unlabeled spices from the rack. He had no idea what they were, but--

 

_"Use your nose, Jimmy, honestly! You smell that? It's much too sweet. Find me something savory, go on."_

 

These items he placed well away from Barton's counter space, which was littered with loose chocolate chips. The balls of dough on the cookie sheet were anything but uniform, but rather than continue to argue, Bucky let it slide. Barton'd be the one eating the damn things anyway; he was free to make them as small or as large as he wanted.

 

"Uh, so, not for cookies?" Clint guessed as he surveyed everything Bucky had set down.

 

"Figure that out all by yourself, huh?" Bucky cracked, one eyebrow raised sardonically. Barton's face scrunched up as he stuck his tongue out with a rude noise. "You wanna eat the cookies--"

 

"--I gotta help make the cookies. Yeah, yeah. I'm a'making, man!"

 

"No, you gotta eat your dinner first." Bucky spread his hands out to indicate all the pizza fixings, and left the _obviously_ to be implied.

 

"Are you just gonna switch up the rules whenever it suits you?" Barton whined, shaking a dough ball loose from his fingertips, which Bucky could tell even at a distance were covered in excess dough and too sticky to be of much use. How the hell had he managed that?

 

Bucky huffed out a sigh. "Sounds like I'll have to."

 

For all his complaining, though, Barton certainly didn't sound all that chuffed at the idea of a fresh slice as he ventured hopefully, "So, pizza?"

 

"Seems to be the only thing other than sweets that you'll eat voluntarily," Bucky said, throwing in a pointed look to make his opinion on that known.

 

Barton cocked his hips to the side and tossed his head back with a sassy twist. "You know me so well."

 

"Yeah well, you want anything to eat at all, how about you get back to what I told ya to do?" Bucky snapped, glaring down at the half-full baking sheet.

 

Barton gave him a snappy salute and barked out smartly, "Yes, chef!" Then he turned back to the bowl of dough and his tacky hands and frowned in consternation.

 

The adorably flustered picture he made had Bucky wishing he could remember how to smile without it getting stuck in the shape of a grimace.


	3. Chapter Two

Clint has a theory. Well, it's really more of a hunch than anything else, but theory sounds better, more thought out. But anyway, this theory, it's based on a growing number of observations.

 

Observation the first: Bucky's a little bit bossy.

 

Not all the time, not even a majority of the time. Namely because the majority of the time, he just lurks with his back to the corner, staring down anyone in the room. And that's when he's even in a room. Clint has, ever so graciously, given up some of his favorite vent accesses to Bucky 'cause the dude's constantly trying to duck away from somebody, though mostly Steve.

 

But on the off chance that you can get him to stay in a room, and then somehow getting him talking to you, provided it's a Good Bucky Day, the guy starts to get demanding. Not, like, in a rude way or anything, but like he's maybe remembering that guy from before Hydra: the charming ladies-man who didn't have to so much ask for things as imply what he wanted, or the sergeant saddled with wrangling a unit of hoodlums who may have had carte blanche while on mission, but very much needed to be kept in line while off.

 

Observation the second is somewhat contradictory to the first: Bucky struggles to make clear-cut decisions.

 

In general, he gets by pretty self-sufficiently, keeping to himself and not bothering anyone unless they bother him first. But when he's around, they've all been instructed to ask after his opinions on things and cede to his preferences when they can. It's like a positive reinforcement angle towards reclaiming his free will or something.

 

Bucky, though, hates having the decisions put to him. The quickest way to turn a Good Bucky Day on its head is to ask Bucky point-blank what he'd like to eat, or worse, if there's something he'd like to watch on the TV. That's usually when he gets all squirrely and frustrated, mostly with himself unfortunately, and disappears back into the air ducts.

 

And that brings Clint around to observation the third: Bucky would rather be focusing on looking after somebody else than whatever exercise of the week his therapist assigns him or the team collectively pushes for.

 

Which Clint gets. It's a pretty basic coping mechanism, indulging in a little self-denial and distracting yourself by putting someone else's needs at the forefront for a bit. It's one Clint falls back on pretty regularly himself.

 

But with Bucky, it's like it's more of an ingrained habit than a response to all the trauma he's been through. Steve actively encourages Bucky to get his mind on someone else's problems, even managed to draft Bucky into a week straight of Stark Sitting when Tony went on a particularly lengthy workshop lockdown. Which, incidentally, was when Clint first ceded the use of his vents to the guy.

 

Observation the third then leads directly into observation the fourth: with the Avengers' schedules being what they are lately, that shifted focus usually ends up on Clint, who's more or less at loose ends and dicking around the tower more often than not.

 

Clint doesn't mind getting caught in Bucky's spotlight a bit. He quite likes having that attention turned on him, in fact. But he has to consider if that attention is just because there's no one else around for Bucky to intimidate into eating more regularly, or if it's more specifically a Clint-driven impulse on Bucky's part.

 

Because observation the fifth: there is _something_ happening between the two of them.

 

There's a definite tone to their interactions, and the more they do interact, the more that tone edges over into outright flirting. Could be they're both just prone to flirt with anybody who passes by, and when you get two people with that personality in a room together, they egg each other on until the innocent stuff suddenly comes across as being that much more.

 

But Clint knows that at least on his part, the interest is genuine, and he gets enough vibes on the good days from Bucky to lead him to think it's a mutual attraction. Of course, then a bad day creeps up on them, and Bucky's back to avoiding everyone's eyes, nevermind talking to anyone. He takes back to the vents, and Clint and Steve and Tony are left to subtly keeping an eye on his movements via JARVIS.

 

And after a bad day, it's like they start back over from scratch. Though at least the time it takes Bucky to recover that crucial sense of self he's hanging onto with just the tips of his fingers gets less and less each time. It's never a really noticeable difference, but apparently it's enough to be statistically significant; JARVIS walked him through the analysis he'd run all the data through, and it sounded awfully compelling when explained in his lilting vocals.

 

So Clint's maybe looking at going all in with a shit hand, but he's got enough hope in that last flop, in Bucky, that he's willing to see it through.

 

Which brings Clint to his hypothesis, iffy as it may seem. 'Cause he might just be projecting or something, but all that prompts Clint to speculate that _maybe_ Bucky could potentially be a dominant-minded individual of the gentle persuasion. Like, in the making. Unless he was into some of it before and doesn't remember it just yet, which is always a possibility. Steve's basically the leading expert on all things Bucky at the moment, and chances are that if Bucky was running around domming back in the day, Steve didn't know about it. Unless they were--no, if Clint lets his imagination wander down that route, he'll be following it for ages only to show up days later with a chaffed dick.

 

And all right, so it's a long shot. But since when has Clint not been willing to take those?

 

Hypothesis set, Clint's ready to move forward to the testing stage. Bruce would be so proud if he knew Clint was setting this all up so carefully, following each step with deliberate thought. On the other hand, Tony'd probably despair of him. Ah, well.

 

\---

 

The simulation Clint's demolishing at the in-house range pauses suddenly, and the arrow he just loosed sails straight into the wall at the back rather than into the mobile target he was tracking, puncturing whatever experimental substance Tony's overlaid it with this week. Drawing in a deep breath and releasing it nice and slow, Clint gradually relaxes the tension in his arms and shoulders, just now taking stock of how sore his arms feel; must've zoned out again if he ignored the alarm he'd set for his workout.

 

_"Pardon me, Agent Barton, but Captain Rogers has requested your presence for a mission briefing in the tower's command center."_

 

Clint huffs out a breath, head falling back so that he can address the closest camera. "How many times I gotta ask you to just call me Clint before you finally give in, Jay?"

 

_"As always, at least once more, Agent Barton."_

 

"Careful there. Don't want Tony getting any ideas about our scandalous, secret affair."

 

_"Parish the thought."_

 

Smiling tiredly, Clint makes a quick circuit around the room to collect his arrows and decides to just cart his bow and quiver along with him rather than stopping by his room to drop them off--Cap gets itchy when it comes to mission briefings, after all.

 

JARVIS activates the elevator as soon as Clint's on board without a word and deposits Clint on the central Avengers floor seconds later.

 

The door to the command center--which was once a spacious board room before a mad demigod wrecked the place and forced a major reno top to bottom--is open, and it looks like everyone's already inside except for Bucky, who's lurking under the vent access panel in the hall, arms crossed and shoulders hunched as he stares unerringly at the room's entrance.

 

Clint ambles past the doorway to draw Bucky's attention, quirking an eyebrow in question once he has it. "You joining in, or what?"

 

Bucky stares at him, through him really, for a disconcertingly long time before he finally shrugs and says, "I wasn't invited to the party."

 

"Doesn't mean you're not welcome." Clint nods his head back towards the door. He can only barely pick up on the rumbling of voices at this distance, but nobody's barking at him to get his ass in a seat already, so he assumes he's still good. "Come on, don't you wanna mock my perch picks right from the get-go instead of just fuming about it once you sneak a peek at the after action reports?"

 

"You climbed into a fucking bucket truck, Barton," Bucky growls, uncrossing his arms and balling his hands into fists at his sides. "The goddamned engine was _already on fire_."

 

"Yeah, good times." Clint smiles fondly at the memory. That was the first time Bucky got obviously worried about him. He stormed into Clint's room on the medical floor and ignored everybody's reassurances that the worst Clint was suffering from was some minor smoke inhalation, then proceeded to check Clint over for injuries himself. His metal hand was delightfully chilly against Clint's skin. "I ever tell you about this one time I jumped into a crane rig to get eyes on? It was awesome. It was raining shits and giggles--"

 

" _Cats and dogs_ , you fucker."

 

"--really gave the compound this whole ambience, like in a romance or some shit, and Thor--this was the first time he got stranded on Earth, before the whole team thing, right? He was just mowing through every agent SHIELD could throw at him, the storm was getting crazy, 'cause _Thor_ \--"

 

"Is there a point to this?" Bucky cuts in harshly, his eyes narrowed in what would be a truly harrowing glare if Clint's BFF wasn't the Black Widow herself.

 

"Not really. It was a good perch though. Great view of all the wet t-shirt action."

 

"With no real cover and no easy way down, I'm guessing?"

 

"How'd you know?"

 

"You're a creature of shitty habits."

 

Clint shrugs, unrepentant. "You got a better idea for me on this one, I'll be all ears."

 

"That mean you're not gonna switch 'em off so you can claim you missed the part about where your alternate perches are meant to be?" One hand comes up, the flesh one, and flicks his ear. It makes Clint nostalgic for all the reprimands he faced down in Nick's office once upon a time, getting scolding for doing that very thing.

 

"Well, not if you're in there with me. Wouldn't wanna miss a word, seeing as they're so hard to come by with you most days. What if you're packing a real zinger today?"

 

If anything, Bucky's glare actually manages to intensify, but his mouth stays stubbornly shut.

 

"Now you're just giving me the moody silence on purpose." Bucky's left eyebrow ratchets up deliberately. With a sigh, Clint drops all the teasing from his expression and stance, lets his eyes telegraph his sincerity for once. "Seriously, man. Come on. I need you in there."

 

Bucky doesn't look too happy about being manipulated into it, but he follows Clint into the room without any further argument. Clint drops straight into the chair open next to Natasha while Bucky walks the perimeter silently. It's a move that's become commonplace in the tower, and Bucky's not even the one falling back on it a lot of the time, so no one pays him any mind.

 

At the head of the conference table, it's surprisingly Steve who's levelling Clint with a stern glare for his tardiness. That job usually falls to Hill, and he honestly wouldn't have expected it at all since it's obvious what the delay was, namely talking Bucky into joining the team for the briefing. Steve's usually all smiles when one of them can get Bucky engaged with Avengers business.

 

"Now that we're all here, let's finally get started," Steve says smartly. He motions for Tony, who's sporting his Oh Snap, Captain America's Disappointed In Somebody and It's Not Me For Once face, to get the intel running on screen.

 

Nonplussed all the same, Clint rocks his chair back onto two legs and cuts his eyes over to Natasha, tilting his head just so to ask her what's got a bee in Cap's bonnet today. "Rumlow," she mouths subtly.

 

Darkly, Clint mutters under his breath, "Oh, goody."

 

Bucky swings around to look at him suddenly, but his expression isn't giving anything away, and there's nothing in his posture to indicate a silent question, so Clint shifts his attention back to Cap at the front of the room while Bucky settles into the back corner.

 

So, business as usual, really.

 

\---

 

Clint's been putting the argument to the team the last few months that Rumlow, scum of the Earth though he may be, isn't as far in Hydra's pocket as they all seem to believe, and that shitshow of a mission only confirmed all his growing concerns.

 

See, Clint's met plenty of guys like Rumlow in his time. Hell, at one point when he was a dumb kid striking out on his own, Clint came very close to becoming that guy. Rumlow will flip on anyone so long as the price is right. The overhanging threat of Hydra's extensive reach is no doubt what kept him in their bag for so long. Plus, the dude's a straight up dick, and probably got his jollies walking around privately lording it over every true SHIELD agent's head that he was in on the ground floor of the snake's den that was just laying in wait to strike.

 

But this latest clusterfuck is in no way, shape, or form the result of a Hydra plot. Clint doesn't care about Hill's theory that the splintered Hydra cells are just vying for top billing within the organization, that this is just the result of some different strokes for different folks shit, because Rumlow wouldn't bother himself with that kind of power play. The asshole may still be running the occasional job for those in Hydra who know how to secure his services, but this latest stunt is linked to the Circus of Crime. Admittedly, Clint's got no clue why Tiboldt would associate with an outsider like Rumlow, nevermind his reprobate crew for hire, just to cause a distraction to cover up a bank heist of all things.

 

He's sure he can figure out the connection and the motive driving the Circus to run so off-book if he can just get a moment to damn well think, but as it is, he's battered and bruised, very likely concussed, and his eyes are still stinging from the pepper grenade that shithole Rumlow shot up in his perch, which is a whole other can of worms because restraint like that is not at all his style.

 

Clint's sprawled out on the ridiculously swanky couch on his floor, a damp washcloth covering his eyes and his aids out in an attempt to ease his building headache, running his mind in ragged circles trying to piece everything together, when someone taps his knee. Clint's heart jackrabbits up into his throat, and he springs forward jabbing out with the combat knife he keeps stashed between the cushions wildly.

 

The sudden spike of adrenalin is a shock to his exhausted system, and he stumbles in his attempt to get up, giving his attacker yet another advantage 'cause he's a dumbfuck who let his guard down, doesn't matter that he's in the tower; JARVIS and the other security measures have been taken out before--

 

But it's just Bucky. Just Bucky sitting on his coffee table, regarding him coolly with the blade of Clint's combat knife grasped firmly in his metal grip.

 

Clint falls back onto the couch, his chest heaving and his hands shaking from the rush of fight-or-flight instincts kicking in, followed by the inexplicably sudden crash back to reality.

 

"The fuck is wrong with you, sneaking up on me like that?" Clint demands with a growl, and it's definitely a growl, he can feel it deep in his chest.

 

Bucky sets the knife aside and passes Clint's abandoned hearing aids over, waiting for Clint to fit them in and turn them back on before replying. "Sorry." He sure as shit doesn't sound it, and the shrug that accompanies the words makes it all the more obvious. "You didn't report to medical."

 

"That's 'cause I'm _fine_."

 

Bucky regards him with his usual blank-faced stare for a moment, then his flesh hand darts out too fast for Clint to stop, poking his bicep right where one of the deeper gashes he managed to pick up in the course of the fight currently resides.

 

"Mother _fucker_ ," Clint hisses out between clenched teeth.

 

Bucky doesn't bother to call him out any further than that, just turns away for a second to pick up something from the floor--one of Bruce and Tony's suped up first aid kits. He silently starts pulling out supplies to clean and dress Clint's injuries, then sets to his self-assigned task, absently remarking, "Didn't think you'd be back anytime soon. That guy who hit the bank, his name was flagged in your file."

 

"Been reading up on me in your spare time?" Clint sneers. Bucky glances up at him placidly, refusing to rise to the bait. Looking away with a huff, Clint grudgingly settles back against the couch, turning himself over to Bucky's tender mercies. "I got a little dizzy and stumbled, so Cap sent me home to rest up. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200."

 

"That's jail, genius."

 

Clint openly gapes at the crown of Bucky's head as he leans over Clint's hands to thoroughly inspect them for damage. "Who the hell taught you to play Monopoly?"

 

"Back in my day," Bucky drawls, his Brooklyn accent just curling the edges of his words. "We called it [The Landlord's Game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord%27s_Game)."

 

"Oh, sure. Play the old man card, that'll--ow! Fucking-a man!" Clint jerks back to escape the sudden sting of the alcohol-soaked swab Bucky's taking to the cuts scattered across his forearms.

 

Bucky easily pulls his arm back in reach, though, the metal plates of his arm shifting to hold Clint in place effortlessly. "Steve sent you to _medical_ , because you're _hurt_. If you ain't gonna go and do as you're told, then you can just shut your piehole and deal with me stitching you up."

 

"It's really not that big a deal, you know," Clint grumbles. "Comes with the territory, being the most breakable Avenger and all." He smirks sardonically.

 

Head still bowed down over where he's working, Bucky slants his eyes up briefly to glare at Clint, his mouth turned down in disapproval. "Natalia wears just as little body armor as you do, but she somehow manages to make it out relatively unscathed."

 

"It's a truth universally acknowledged that anything I can do, she can do better, backwards, and in heels."

 

Dropping the last blood-drenched swab down on the precarious pile he's made on the coffee table, Bucky pulls out one of the self-adhesive bandages and a pack of gauze from the kit and begins wrapping Clint's arms without deigning to reply. Bucky's hands are surprisingly gentle. Well, not surprising to Clint, not anymore, given the careful yet efficient way he'd cleaned around Clint's many contusions and lacerations. But the mindful way he's covering the long cut stretching down Clint's forearm where his shooting guard was sliced away, it hardly falls in line with his gruff appearance and prickly demeanor.

 

Clint recognizes the tactic behind Bucky's growing silence, though; it's something Coulson used to do after missions gone bad when Clint was too busy fuming about missed opportunities he should have capitalized on to calm down and start thinking about their next move. He'd go all quiet, act all unassuming while patching Clint up, let the silence stretch out until Clint grew too antsy to let it continue. And then he'd let Clint rant out his feelings, quietly correct him whenever he thought Clint was ragging too hard on himself, interject to redirect Clint's blame to where it needed to go.

 

It helped, when Coulson would do that; it even worked to wind him down most of the time. But he's not interested in playing that game today. He's too keyed up after yet another fuck up in an ever-growing string of them for it to settle him now. What he really needs is--

 

"Hey, so you know how you boss me around sometimes?" Clint blurts out, his tone dismissive, but his attention's fully engaged, his eyes locked with intent on Bucky even as they continue to water at the burn that's stubbornly refusing to fade. Which--was not at all how he'd plan to bring this particular topic up, but it looks like he's taking the Tony Stark Method™ to this one after all. Course prematurely set, he forges on nonetheless. "You ever think about doing that, but like, more officially?"

 

Bucky's hands, winding a spool of bandage from Clint's shoulder to elbow, freeze mid-motion.

 

"Like when you put your foot down and take away my coffee pot and give me a bottle of water?" Clint prods.

 

Abruptly, Bucky's arms fall back to his sides and his face crumples. "I--I didn't mean to--I'm sorry--"

 

"Hey, cool your jets, man." Clint ducks down so he's in Bucky's downcast sights, letting an easy, reassuring smile crop up and push aside his resting murder face, as it's often dubbed. "Take a breath. I'm not mad about it; I like it. I'm just wondering if maybe you like it too? Keeping on to me about that junk, taking care of me?"

 

Bucky's eyes are ticking back and forth, not zeroing in on much of anything as he gradually sinks in on himself. Clint doesn't push him to make eye contact, but he doesn't back off either. Suddenly, Bucky roars, “I don't know!” His fists come down with a resounding crash on the table hard enough that the left leaves behind an indent in the wood.

 

Clint cocks an eyebrow at the display, but doesn’t otherwise react.

 

“Shit sorry," Bucky quickly backpedals, apologizing and tucking his hands up under his folded arms. "I—it’s just…there’s  _too much_. How'm I supposed to help _anybody_ when I can’t even—“ He cuts himself off, biting at his lips harshly.

 

“Yeah, you’re getting hung up trying to decide things for yourself, right? Makes sense." Clint keeps his voice soft and understanding, his posture open and non-threatening. "I mean, with the whole Hydra Robbed You of All Free Will thing. I get it. Thing is, you never seem to have any issue making decisions for me. You didn’t have any trouble throwing out my Chips-a-hoy and bossing me around the kitchen to make cookies from scratch the other day. Or telling me what's-what for missions, even if I'm just singing back-up. Or hell, sneaking in here so you could stitch me up, nevermind that I'm fine.”

 

“You're _not fine_ ," Bucky snaps fiercely, eyes blazing. But a second later, he's back to looking meek and confused and overwhelmed. "And that stuff…that’s different.”

 

“How?”

 

“You wanted cookies! I—know how to make cookies, apparently," Bucky flounders as his hands clench and unclench restlessly where they're bunched up at his sides. "So I made them.”

 

“ _We_  made them, thank you very much,” Clint insists, shifting his shoulders just so to affect an air of smugness that's bound to--

 

“ _You_ almost burned ‘em.” Ah, yes. There it is, that adorable little moue that just needs a little bit of self-righteous posturing to run rampant before it appears like a ghost in the night.

 

Checking his grin at the door to keep the game going, Clint asserts, “But I didn’t _actually_ burn anything!”

 

“’Cause I stepped back in before you could!”

 

“Yeah. Exactly.” The corners of Clint's mouth are twitching upwards, and he's amused to note just how simple it is to get Bucky too flustered to retreat into a self-conscious shell. “You ever heard of BDSM?”

 

That throws him for a loop, it looks like, Bucky's face contorting in his confusion and leaving the sad puppy eyes well in the dust. “Huh?”

 

“You know," Clint waves his hands about expansively. "Like bondage, and doms and subs, and—“

 

“The whips and chains stuff?” Bucky asks incredulously.

 

“Twitter is completely beyond you, but hardcore BDSM practices, that you picked up on?" Clint snarks. "Sometimes, yeah. But that’s not the part I’m getting at. There’s this dynamic—“

 

“That’s a sex thing," Bucky insists. "You’re talking about a sex thing.”

 

“Would you stop interrupting me so I can explain what I'm actually talking about?" Clint huffs out an exasperated sigh. "It’s only a sex thing some of the time—okay, most of the time. But it doesn’t have to be!”

 

“So what’re you getting at, huh?”

 

“I think—and look, it’s just a thought, you can say no, it’s no big deal—" Clint's tripping over himself already, ugh. This is why he was supposed to stick to his very well thought-out plan. It included a step where he wrote all this shit down and practiced it in front of the mirror so he could sound all suave and knowledgeable. "But I think you do better when you’ve got somebody to look after, you know? And, personally, I think you'd maybe manage this whole newfound free will thing better if you had someone other than yourself to exert a little control over, someone who was fully on board with being ordered around by you.”

 

Bucky's eyebrows shoot up and his face morphs into the epitome of skepticism. "You don't exactly strike me as the type who's much interested in following orders."

 

"Hey, I follow orders just fine so long as I can see the sense in 'em. And when the order's to lay down, put my head in your lap and let you pet my hair?" Clint shrugs and his accompanying smile is one part bashful and two parts eager. "Ten outta ten, would highly recommend." He clicks his tongue as he flicks both his thumbs up.

 

Bucky's still looking rather doubtful of Clint's assessment, all told. Clint brings up a hand and scrubs at the back of his head while he thinks over how to best explain it so that he'll at least somewhat understand. "Look, for you, it's about taking control again, right? They stripped you of all agency, just shoved orders down your throat that you had no choice about obeying, yeah?

 

"That's not what it was for me," he continues, his voice dropping low and grave. Bucky knows the barebones of how Clint came to be an Avenger, everything that the rest of the tower knows, really. But the actual experience, he's only ever hashed that out with his therapist before, and haltingly at that. "It wasn't brainwashing, it wasn't--mind control. What the sceptre--what Loki did to me--I'm loyal to people, you gotta understand. Not any kind of higher power or greater good or government entity. I fell in with SHIELD because my people were SHIELD. And what SHIELD asked me to do, well, it fell in line with my own moral code, so I didn't have any issue taking orders from them. I had Nick and Phil and Tasha to point me at targets, and I trusted them to have a good reason for pointing me there."

 

Licking at his chapped lips anxiously, Clint has to clear his throat a couple times before he can go on. "Loki--that sceptre, it twisted everything around in my head. _Loki_ was my top priority, not stopping him but _protecting_ him, protecting his interests. He wanted the cube, and SHIELD was getting in the way of that, so I stepped in to get the job he wanted done. That thing--magic or whatever the hell you want to call it--it made me loyal to Loki, made me turn on those I actually trusted.

 

"The whole time--that was all me," Clint admits quietly, his voice a rasping scrape tearing out of his throat. "I was in complete control, just working towards Loki's interests instead of my people's. _I_ planned the heist, _I_ came up with the idea for the distraction, _I_ broke it all down for him how to take everybody out, _I_ took down the Helicarrier."

 

Bucky's expression turned heartbreakingly sympathetic somewhere around the middle there, and he hesitantly relaxes his arms and moves a hand to rest lightly on Clint's jittering knee.

 

"When I'm the one in charge, I'm dangerous," Clint admits solemnly. "I need somebody, somebody I can trust, to hold my leash basically. Cap and Hill and Stark handle that for missions these days, and Tasha's always ready to step in when she sees that I need it, but right now, I'm asking you to be that person off the field. I'm asking you to take the control away from me, to give me whatever orders you see fit, and I'll follow 'em. 'Cause that's what helps me, following orders from someone who's got my best interests at heart. And I think having somebody do what you want, what you think is best with no judgement coming back at you for it, will help you too."

 

Bucky hasn't snapped or walked away yet, looks like he's turning everything Clint said over in his head, which Clint is inclined to interrupt positively. He's made his case, discombobulated as it may have come out, and now it's up to Bucky whether or not to accept his proposal, i.e. it's time for Clint to beat a hasty retreat and let the ideas he's planted simmer.

 

"Listen, you don't have to answer now," Clint assures him, inching over on the sofa so he can stand up without swinging his junk right in Bucky's face. "I mean, if you wanna go ahead and tell me to just fuck off, go for it, I totally understand. I ambushed you with all of this. I swear I had a plan to handle it better, but _que sera, sera_." He scratches at one of the bandages firmly encircled around his forearm, fighting the urge to fidget more obviously. "All I'm saying is, maybe look into it all, do some research, think it over if you're at all interested. Just ask JARVIS if you do start investigating, though. That rabbit hole can get pretty daunting on your own, but he'll hook you up."

 

Bucky levers up to his feet as well, scoffing, "Think I'll manage just fine, thanks."

 

Well that sounds--promising. Smirking at Bucky, he says, "You know, he wouldn't get so snippy with you all the time if you just acknowledged he's a person."

 

Bucky rolls his eyes. "Except that it's not."

 

It's a familiar refrain, one he's been working at breaking down for months now, but Bucky still refuses to make his peace with JARVIS. Personally, Clint attributes the low-key animosity to the fact that JARVIS has been like a 24/7 Personal Bucky Watchdog since he joined them in the tower. JARVIS's pervasive presence is definitely an acquired taste that really only sets well once you've gotten to know the AI.

 

"He doesn't got a body, maybe, but that doesn't mean he's not a person," Clint defends gently. "Jay's better at it than me most days."

 

_"You devalue yourself far too often, Agent Barton. I can only aspire to your humility."_ JARVIS's droll tones sound suddenly in the room, and Bucky's frame immediately tenses in response as he glares suspiciously up at the vaulted ceiling.

 

"Thanks, Jay." Shaking his head, Clint starts backing up in the direction of the bathroom. Everything still covered by his tac suit is growing itchy with the crusted blood and sweat mingling unpleasantly and beginning to chafe. "Look, last thing?" he throws out as he goes. "If you're on the fence and not, like, immediately noping out of everything you find, then come talk to me before you decide anything for sure? I'll do what I can to answer any questions you've got, just--talk to me. Please. If you're at all interested, I mean."

 

Bucky regards him seriously for a tense, drawn out moment before nodding decisively. "Deal."

 

Clint grins, sudden and bright. "Awesome! Cool beans--"

 

"So long as you eat your sandwich," he plows on, jerking a thumb over to draw Clint's attention to the kitchen counter, where there is in fact a sandwich sitting innocuously on a white plate. When the hell did that get there? Fucking super soldier _ninja_. "Then you go straight to bed. And _sleep_."

 

"Aw, Barnes," Clint whines, but smiling through it. "Why you gotta harsh my mellow, man?"

 

Bucky wags a finger at him menacingly. "At least five hours," he demands.

 

Clint kind of really wants to say something like, _Look at you, already getting into the swing of things_. Or maybe a mocking little, _Sir, yes sir!_ But he doesn't want Bucky storming off in a huff from him. He'd rather savor Bucky's stern, concerned frown for a little while longer. There's something earnestly honest about it that's egging on that little ball of hope in the back of Clint's mind that he usual keeps shup down with ruthless pragmatism.

 

Clint redirects his steps to take him past the counter, swiping up the sandwich one-handed and chomping down on it obediently.


	4. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major kudos to [tanouska](http://tanouska.tumblr.com/) for the beta on this chapter! Thank you oodles!

There was a mid-level SI manager located on the sixth floor of the tower who was anal about milking his hour-long lunch down to the last millisecond every day, which was convenient for Bucky's purposes, even though the overly-organized office always left him feeling unsettled. There wasn't a single personal photo or knick-knack to be found; in fact, Bucky had discovered that the one picture frame that was on the desk actually still held the same stock photo it was sold off the shelf with--a sun-tanned family on vacation at the beach. It was distressingly obvious that not a one of them could ever pass for the manager's pasty, rotund figure.

But wonder of wonders, even Stark, sitting pretty in his all-seeing tower, had some boundaries when it came to the closed-door offices within his company. Or more likely, Ms. Potts had put her foot down when it came to their employees' privacy and Stark bent over to kiss it. Surprisingly, that privacy policy extended to their computers as well, which, while connected to the tower's network, weren't actively monitored by Stark's intrusive AI. So Bucky set up shop in J. S. Carmichael's office from twelve to one every day for the next week and set about learning all the internet had to teach him about "BDSM" without the overhanging worry that Stark's program would rat him out and set Stark on a merciless teasing binge.

It turned out that there was quite a bit more info on the subject than Bucky had anticipated.

Which was unfortunate because it meant he was limited to what he could glean from skimming sites for relevant details, seeing as he wasn't about to risk toting around a physical paper trail, and he never even had the full hour to work with due to the fact that he had to wipe his search history from Carmichael's computer each day before disappearing back up into the air ducts.

Bucky could admit, at least in the quiet of his own mind, that he was curious to see what would happen if he were to leave some incriminating evidence behind. Just the cookies, really; it'd be a hell of thing for Carmichael's starch existence to be shaken up a bit while he was browsing on his self-designated breaks only to get bombarded with embedded ads for sparkly butt plugs and stylized floggers.

All in all, though, Bucky found himself at a bit of a loss. There were quite a few things popping up frequently and prevalently in his searches that had him cringing on reflex and exiting out of the site before he was even sure what he was looking at exactly.

A lot of it was sex. That, at least, he was expecting. Even the so-called instructional stuff had the models posed all provocative-like. There were a few things that he stopped and really took in--like one image where a naked man was kneeling in front of a woman done up in brassiere and stockings and high, high heels, with the guy’s hands bound together and resting low on his back while his head was bowed, one of her hands braced on the back of his neck with the other trailing over the muscles of his shoulders. Ones like that, they intrigued Bucky enough to give him pause, but more often than not, they left him feeling like he was meant to be getting something _more_ out of them.

So, sure, there was plenty that didn't turn him off straight away, but there was also nothing that turned him _on._ Granted, it wasn't like there'd been _anything_ that sent him scurrying for a cold shower or looking to make furtive time with his right hand in a bathroom stall since he'd stopped answering to солдат and started working toward becoming Bucky again.

(He wondered if that was the kind of thing he was allowed to ask Steve about. Would Steve even know what kind of shit he used to get up to behind closed doors when he brought somebody home? But they'd roomed together for a while, hadn't they? That seemed like the kind of thing people would notice about one another, whether they wanted to or not.)

But what Barton had said, the way he'd explained things, if they got involved, the core of it would be Bucky looking after Barton. It wouldn't have to be-- _like_ _that_ between them. And he'd framed it like Barton needed Bucky, that Bucky could _help_ him somehow by being in charge of Barton's well-being.

And that--that was a tempting offer to consider.

The thing was, Bucky didn't have much in the way of concrete memories of who he was before ~~the war~~ ~~Hydra~~ ~~the Soldier~~ all of it. He had wisps of dreams that he struggled to validate, secondhand memories from the stories Steve shared, flashes of familiar sights and sounds and smells.

But one of the things he did remember, vague and incomplete as the actual memories were, was looking after Stevie--after a fight went too far, after a cold snap snuck up on them, after another double date ended with them walking home alone. He remembered being wanted and _needed_ , remembered Steve turning to him when the weight of the world finally started shoving down on his shoulders. And Bucky remembered how good doing all that had made him feel, the blurry glimpses hovering just out of his reach leaving him with impressions of warmth and contentment and pride.

Bucky was willing to try just about anything to feel something good again.

And Barton, as it turned out, was actually kind of in need of some intervention, what with how fucked up in the head he was. Not like Bucky was, but then, nobody was fucked up in the head quite like Bucky was. Barton, though, he was really talented at _hiding_ just how bad off he actually was, which was a scary thought once Bucky started looking into every little crack in his façade that he caught sight of, chasing down all the little leads.

For instance, Bucky was shocked to discover that Barton rarely ate considering how often he had food of some sort in hand whenever Bucky stumbled across him. If Barton was on one of the common floors, chances were he was toting around some package of junk food, but on closer inspection, Bucky noted that he never did much other than nibble at whatever it was. And when it circled around to Barton's night to pick the Team Dinner Take Out, he usually defaulted to pizza, sampling all the pies noticeably, but as soon as he managed to egg Steve and Thor into an eating contest, he spent the remainder of the meal laughing and cracking wise, only having eaten a couple slices all told. Hell, the cabinets on his floor, while stocked with just about every flavor of protein bar Bucky figured was on the market, plus an unhealthy amount of coffee, didn't hold anything he'd consider substantial enough to cover all the calories a guy of Barton's size and activity level should be consuming. And that seemed to be exactly what Barton generally subsisted on--gritty protein bars and too strong coffee.

On top of not eating right, Barton worked himself to the bone in the gym and on the range, ducking in and out throughout the day whenever there wasn't anything else happening to hold his attention. Bucky couldn't really object to that level of physical exertion considering the lengths he worked his own body through, but then again, he also had a boost from the bastardized serum pumping through his veins.

Then there was the fact that Barton rarely slept. Bucky put that down to frequent nightmares, which he could unfortunately relate to all too well. Barton’d managed to cultivate this image around the Tower, though, of this lazy guy who rarely did anything _other_ than sleep if he wasn't actively training. They’d all regularly walk into the common areas to find Barton slumped over an arm of the couch dozing, or catch the echo of a snore filtering through the air vents, or he’d be passed out in the back of the Quinjet after a mission as soon as the computer overlord confirmed the autopilot was engaged. But for all that, Bucky managed every now and then to catch him out--an exhausted sag to his shoulders once the elevator doors closed, the excessive blinks when he was holding back a yawn during a briefing, the extra second he’d take to clue in on things sometimes.

That was Barton’s whole routine, actually, barring any Avengers emergencies: wake up at an odd hour due to a nightmare, overdo it on coffee to wake himself up, stock his pockets with a box's worth of bars, head to the gym, take a break to make sure he was seen in the kitchen or lounge, converse with whoever else was around, then go to town on the range until he was exhausted enough to pass out for a couple of hours until another nightmare startled him awake. Rinse and repeat, ad nauseam.

And Barton seemed to think that Bucky could help with all that, though hell if Bucky knew why.

Which is where things stood a week after Barton first proposed a new facet to their--friendship? Bucky had more questions than answers, though his curiosity was piqued, and there was still the matter of Barton's parting request to resolve.

So Bucky laid in wait for Barton in the duct access above his living room, psyching himself up to damn well _talk_.

* * *

Bucky gave Barton a couple minutes to settle in once he arrived on his floor, presumably having come from the range given the sweat sticking his shirt to his skin and the red lines tracing over his forearms where his braces had been. His eyes tracked Barton's movements as he pulled down a mug and filled it with water at the fridge, on the lookout for any signs of strain or muscle fatigue, but Barton must have just concluded his first foray to the training levels given the lacking signs of overexertion.

Bucky silently dropped to the floor behind the couch while Barton was tearing a protein bar open with his teeth. It may not have been wise to ghost around the Tower, popping up unexpectedly on people with the kind of hair triggers the Avengers seemed to amass, but catching one of them off-guard was always entertaining, at least momentarily.

Barton turned, already chugging his water to most likely chase the "flavor" of that God awful bar, but didn't even blink at Bucky's sudden appearance.

Eyes narrowed, Bucky declared, "I know you didn't hear me. And there's no way you saw me."

"We all have our secrets," Barton replied, smirking mischievously. Bucky swung his glare up to the hidden camera above the stove, and Barton snorted. "Seriously, you're never gonna win in a war against JARVIS. Might as well give in and make nice while he's still willing to forgive and forget."

Rather than dignify that with a response, Bucky instead cut right to the heart of the matter that'd actually brought him out of the duct system with deadpan efficiency. "A lotta what I found was sex-related. Almost all of it."

Barton's face contorted awkwardly. "Yeah, that's usually the most popular stuff, and like, what ends up in pornos, but it doesn't have to be about all that."

"Shit seemed awfully--" Bucky paused, grinding his teeth together as he searched out the best word for the complicated mix of emotions some of the images had stirred up. " _Intimate_ , for it not to lead to sex at some point."

Mug in hand, Barton crossed over to the designated living room area and plopped down on the coffee table, waving Bucky over to the couch so they sat in a neat reversal of their positions from a week ago. "It's more about doing whatever you're comfortable with, you and whoever's in it with you," Barton explained, a considering frown turning down the edges of his mouth.

"Is it a sex thing for you?" Bucky asked point-blank.

Waving his free hand in a so-so gesture, Barton replied, "Sometimes, but then sometimes not. I don't need the stuff I do while subbing to lead to sex to get what I need from the experience, if that makes sense?" Barton shrugged. "Why, do you _want_ it to be a sex thing with us?"

" _No sex_ ," Bucky answered immediately, his voice rough with frustration and his eyes focused on the way his fingers were digging slowly but surely into the meat of his thighs.

"Okay. No sex." Barton's tone was nothing if not casual, but Bucky was hard pressed to figure out if it was a deliberate action on his part or he was just honestly fine with the concession. "S'it cool if I ask why? Like, is it an attraction thing, 'cause we're both dudes?"

Bucky mulled over the question seriously for a moment, started to shake his head, then stopped and shrugged instead.

"Is it a me thing?"

"Pretty sure it's a me thing," Bucky muttered bitterly. Better than admitting the actual issue was that he was pretty sure he _couldn't_ have sex, not anymore. Yet another thing Zola and Hydra's mad scientists had stripped from him. A weapon was no good it if could be led by it's dick, after all.

"Do you wanna test it or something? So you are sure?" Barton suggested, peering over the rim of his mug with raised eyebrows.

"Test what?"

Barton moved his mug back and forth in the air between them, sloshing water up the sides. "The attraction thing."

"How?" Bucky asked incredulously.

"Quick and dirty way? We just kiss," Barton explained, all lazy ease from his perch on the edge of the coffee table like what he was recommending wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Bucky, lacking as he was in the memory department, was sure as shit that it really kind of _was_. "Then we see if there's a spark. Even if there is, though, doesn't mean we have to do anything about it. If you want sex off the table, then it's off. But if you're interested in other stuff, I'm just saying I'd be down for it if you wanted to try."

"Other stuff?" Bucky's voice came out pitched too high, and he cleared his throat ruthlessly.

"Yeah, like a huggin' and a kissin'." Barton accompanied his sing-song words with an exaggerated waggle of his brows. "Affectionate stuff. Physical contact's good for the soul and all."

Bucky blinked and looked back at Barton blankly. "I thought that was chicken soup?"

"I honestly can't tell whether you're trolling me or not," Barton grumbled, eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You and Steve both. You guys are _so close_ to giving Thor a run for his money."

Bucky just left his eyes wide and innocent, tilting his head to the side.

Shaking his head, Barton moved back on track. "So? You up for it?"

Bucky waffled over the question, popping his jaw side-to-side as he stared Barton down. Barton didn't give him anything to work off of, though, watching him calmly. "I--guess?" Bucky finally hazarded after the silence had drawn on too long.

"Hey, up to you man," Barton promised as he spread his hands out placatingly. "You don't wanna, that's fine. Gives me a good idea of where to draw the lines here either way."

Bucky forced his fingers to relax their death grips on his legs and absentmindedly smoothed down the rumpled fabric. "Don't know 'til you try, though, right?"

"A ringing endorsement if I ever heard one," Barton shot back, a smirk breaking through the façade of absolute patience and somehow irking Bucky more than anything Barton had said.

Rolling his eyes expressively, Bucky rocked forward on the couch until he was close enough to cup Barton’s face with his flesh hand, kissing any other smartass remark Barton might be holding back right off his upturned lips.

Without a frame of reference to look back on and compare to, Bucky was left to conclude that it was the best kiss of his life, chaste as it was. He kept his lips sealed where they were pressed tightly to Barton's, and Barton seemed to be fully committed to letting Bucky lead things because he didn't do anything more than twist his head just enough for their mouths to slot together more closely. There were no tongues involved, no spit-swapping, and hell, barely any movement to be had during the brief encounter. There was nothing extraordinary about it other than, technically, it was Bucky's first kiss. But it still left Bucky with this inkling, sort of like déjà vu, that had him labelling the experience overall as _pleasant_.

Leaning back after a moment, Bucky licked his lips nervously as he waited for Barton's judgement to rain down. But instead, he just sat and waited expectantly for Bucky's reaction.

"Well?" he prodded after a minute had passed with nothing happening on Bucky's end. "Anything?"

Unsure how to respond, Bucky fell back on the first thing that came to mind, which could at least be construed as a compliment. "Your lips taste...nice?"

The smirk slid right back into place on Barton's face, but his amusement didn't reach all the way up to his eyes like before. "Thanks. I'll be sure to pass your compliment along to Hill. Stole the chapstick from her," Barton teased, throwing in a wink for good measure, though it came across as forced to Bucky.

Electing to let the moment pass without dredging up any awkwardness that might accompany it, Bucky simply shook his head with a sigh and played along. "You have a death wish."

"So it's been said." He went back to sipping at his mug, though Bucky doubted there was actually any water left in it. Barton's gaze, flitting between Bucky's face and his hands, which were limp at his sides, was decidedly pensive. "Couldn't help but notice that you didn't flip out with me all up in your grill there."

Hitching one shoulder up dismissively, Bucky deadpanned, "Told you, you don't register as a threat."

"Ass," Clint scoffed, kicking at Bucky's shins. Bucky pulled his legs up out of the line of fire and rested his forearms over his knees. "So hey, is it gonna be okay if I'm all up in your personal bubble sometimes?" Barton continued curiously. "'Cause I'm good with respecting whatever boundaries you wanna put in place, I'm just saying you need to let me know up front 'cause I can get clingy. And falling asleep leaning on somebody is a habit I've never had much luck breaking myself out of, you know? So I need to know how much distance you're wanting me to maintain."

"That--should be fine," Bucky mumbled. In fact, just imagining Barton curled up around him and dozing without a care in the world had something warm and comforting pooling low in Bucky's gut.

"Cool!" Barton's eyes shone brightly as he grinned, oozing a level of sincerity that had Bucky hunching in on himself. He was never going to be able to live up to Barton's expectations, but he was far too selfish not to try, desperately chasing after every pleased smile he could inexplicably earn. "See, the stuff I really enjoy is like, well, most people think of it as aftercare. But that kinda implies it's for after the scene? And I prefer that stuff to be the bulk of it. The scene."

"Aftercare?" Bucky asked with a puzzled frown. Barton's grin faded and a calculating expression took its place, causing Bucky's stomach to plummet and cramp up all at once.

_Shit._ He'd already gotten something wrong.

Barton's face suddenly screwed up in a wince. "Futz. Okay, that one's on me," he said self-deprecatingly. "Shoulda given you some more specifics before setting you lose in the internet wilds."

Setting his mug aside, Clint hoisted himself up to his feet and motioned for Bucky to scoot over from his spot on the couch. Flummoxed, Bucky slid down to the other end. Barton flipped the couch cushion he'd been sitting on upright and unzipped the cover, stuffing his hand down inside the foam and coming back out with a tin box. Popping open the lid, Barton revealed a slew of cell phones, some hideously outdated even by Bucky's admittedly limited standards. He pulled out a sleek smartphone, which was notably _not_ a Starkphone, and tossed it over to Bucky.

By rote, Bucky turned the phone over and opened the back casing, extracting the battery and checking for bugs.

"It's a clean burner, never been used," Barton explained. "It's got a data plan set up so you can surf the web to your heart's content without hopping on the Tower network and worrying about JARVIS tracking your search history." Bucky glanced up at Barton skeptically, and Barton caved a second later. "I mean, not that he _couldn't_ 'cause he's basically Skynet, but he's too polite to bother."

Replacing the battery and sliding the cover back in place, Bucky juggled the phone between his hands.

"Hey," Barton collapsed back to the coffee table in front of him, knocking their knees together. "He'll leave that phone alone. Trust me. It's for your eyes only."

Bucky stared back at Barton, all earnest and genuine in the face of Bucky's paranoia, and could only bring himself to nod. Barton accepted it easy as anything and rocked back upright.

"Okay, so some good search terms to get you properly started," Barton continued, ticking his suggestions off on his fingers absently as he circled the coffee table. "Aftercare, get that one cleared up. Safewords, always a staple. Safe, sane and consensual, though that tends to show up with a lot of safewords stuff. Kink, general term, but that'll lead you to some pretty comprehensive lists, and you can take it from there."

Bucky suddenly felt overwhelmed again, and he could hazard a guess at how much of that showed on his face by the way Barton cut off his spiel and shot him a reassuring smile. "Any questions, and I mean _any_ , I'm sure you'll know where to find me."

Which, sure. Bucky could work within those parameters.

* * *

"I don't want you calling me _sir_ ," Bucky insisted, slipping in through the closing elevator doors behind Barton, who didn't do more than blink at Bucky's sudden appearance and make room for him to lean on the back wall as well. The elevator didn't budge as the tower's infernal overseer waited for one of them to announce a destination. A growl worked its way up from deep in Bucky's chest as he continued, "And definitely none of that _master_ shit. I'm not--"

Barton bumped their shoulders together to cut him off. "Hey, yeah, I get it. No worries. Kinda curious how that came up, but--"

"Am I supposed to call you Clinton?" Bucky barreled on, glowering at their myriad reflections filling the small space.

A shiver wracked up Barton's frame and he pulled a disgruntled face. "Ugh, no. Definitely not. Back up a sec, though. We can just stick to Bucky and Clint, unless you think there's a reason we shouldn't."

"It would…help, though. Wouldn't it?" Bucky crossed his arms to keep his hands from fidgeting.  "To separate things."

"Yeah," Barton drawled out, head knocking back and forth as he considered. "It can. And calling each other certain things can work as a cue sometimes, I guess. So you wanna do that?" Bucky nodded, jerky but sure. Barton met his eyes in the mirrored doors and a smirk slowly started inching its way up his cheeks. "Alright. What should I call you then? _Buckaroo_?" he cooed.

" _James_ ," Bucky replied with a scowl. His gaze skittered away as he explained, "I feel more like a James than a Bucky most days, anyway."

Next to him, Barton shifted his weight so he was nearly pressed up along Bucky's side, his body heat faint but noticeable. "If you want us to, we'd all switch to calling you James, no problem. Even Steve. _Especially_ Steve."

"No, it's--" Bucky shook his head vehemently. "I don't mind answering to Bucky. I want to _be_ Bucky again. It's just--"

"A work in progress?" Eyes dropping dejectedly to the floor, Bucky didn't reply. "You know, even if you guys had never ended up here, if you hadn'ta fallen, and if Steve never tanked that plane in the Arctic--if you both survived the war and went home, neither one of you was ever gonna be those same kids again, right?" Barton said, his voice gone gentle and soft like that'd make his words less of a blow. "People change, simple fact of life. We grow older, sometimes wiser, usually a lot more jaded. You guys fought in a war, like _the_ war. You're not the same guy you were back then, but neither is he."

Bucky's shoulders tensed and he couldn't keep his teeth from grinding together painfully. He stepped to the doors, but they didn't open. With a frustrated huff, he jabbed the nearest button on the side panel, and the elevator smoothly began to descend.

Barton moseyed back up to his side, his tone dripping fucking _sunshine_ as he babbled, "Alright, so we do this, I call you James. Easy enough. Got any ideas for me? I don't much care so long as you keep that _Clinton_ shit out of it. I'm always good with just Clint. Can't even get Jay to drop the _Agent Barton_ crap."

Despite himself, Bucky felt his posture relaxing as Barton rambled on, swaying lightly with the movement of the elevator so that he kept brushing up against Bucky's metal arm. The car came to a stop as seamlessly as it had started, and the doors parted with a near-silent _whoosh_. "I'm sure I'll think of something," Bucky promised as he strode forward, moving his hands to bunch them up in the pockets of his pants.

"Right, 'cause that's not ominous at all," Barton called after him. Head ducked down, Bucky let a fleeting smile settle on his lips.

* * *

_“Этот человек, он был очень непослушный, Солдат. Ему нужно узнать ошибку своих путей. И для этого вам нужно наказать его.”_

_“Наказать его как?”_

_“Как бы вы ни находились, Солдат. Что бы ни потребовалось, чтобы убедиться, что урок погружен, да?”_

_“да.”_

* * *

Bucky waited for Steve and Wilson to finish up their hand-to-hand practice on the mats and exit towards the locker room before he sauntered out of the shadowed corner overlooking the seldom used stationary bikes and stalked over to where Barton was working his way through the free weights.

Watching the steady curl of Barton’s bicep in the mirrored wall, he divulged point-blank, “Chains and whips don’t excite me.”

Barton’s head popped up to meet Bucky’s eyes in the mirror. For once, he actually looked shocked at Bucky’s sudden appearance, but it was clearly more to do with his opener than his stealth abilities given the way his lips were curling up at the edges as his eyes widened. Bucky _was_ going to unearth how that blasted computer kept warning Barton when he was approaching; there wasn’t even a way for the damned thing to give Barton a visual cue where he was positioned in the gym.

“Was that--did you just--” Barton spluttered, ditching his weights and spinning around on the bench to face Bucky head on. “That was a joke!”

Bucky felt his mouth twitching in answer to Barton’s amusement, but it only lasted a second, and then he was focused again on what he’d actually come down to say. "I'm not going to hurt you. I don't do that anymore."

"O-kay?” Barton drawled, eyebrow cocked curiously. “Good to know."

"I don't give a flying fuck about all that pleasure-pain bullshit,” Bucky continued vehemently, the servos in his left arm hissing quietly in the cybernetic arm’s version of a flex. “I'm not gonna do it."

"Oh!” Barton exclaimed, his expression clearing out in understanding. “Shit, okay, I'm on the same page now.” Barton scrambled up from the bench, stepping in toward Bucky before abruptly pulling himself back and just holding up his hands in a calming gesture, like he wasn’t sure he was welcome in Bucky’s space. And that--that wasn’t right.

“Right, no pain play,” he agreed easily, and Bucky let himself relax, even if only just. “I'm down with that. My--I had a partner. Before. He explained all the--psychology, I guess? Behind all that, so like, I get it.” As Barton’s tangent picked up speed, his hands started fluttering around him, darting toward Bucky occasionally but never getting quite close enough to touch, and his lips kept turning down deeper and deeper as he went. “But it’s never been something that got my motor running, you know? Pain and shit, and the people you’re meant to trust being the ones bringing it down on you? That’s all tied up in too many bad memories. There’s no fun there.”

Bucky stared Barton down for long seconds, but there was no judgement or disappointment that Bucky could discern lurking in his expression, no tell-tale ticks evident that might indicate Barton was lying. Finally, with a decisive nod, Bucky spun on his heel and left the gym without another word.

“Right. Cool,” Barton called after him. “Good talk!”

* * *

_“I told you! I’ll be fine on my own.”_

_“You really won’t.”_

_“I can take care of myself!”_

_“But you don’t have to, you stubborn idiot! I’m right here. I wanna help!”_

_“Jerk.”_

_“Punk.”_

* * *

Barton didn’t startle when Bucky swung down from the drop ceiling right behind him, his knees anchored at the edges of the opening to keep him suspended in mid-air. The bastard didn’t even flinch, he just turned nice and slow so that they were nose-to-nose and drawled out, all cool and nonchalant, "Jeez, dude. Creeper much?"

"You didn't even draw a knife," Bucky accused with a severe frown marring his features as he twisted back up to get a grip on the ledge before letting his lower body fall, landing with a barely there _thump_. “The computer--”

“ _JARVIS_.”

“--Didn’t know I was up there, so there’s no way you did. I could have been an intruder.”

Barton shrugged, not a care in the world seeming to drag him down, but that was nothing but a lie painted up all pretty--literally. ‘Cause he was using concealer to mask the heavy circles under his eyes, probably lifted it from Natalia’s clutch, or maybe--if he’d been moved by some shred of self-preservation for once--just from Lewis’s easily accessible Bag of Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice (her words, not Bucky’s).

“What can I say? Guess you’re just getting to be predictable in your old age,” Barton replied, a teasing grin hinting around the edges of his mouth. “Besides, thought you had the tower on lockdown?"

With a disgruntled huff, Bucky shot back, "I do, but--"

"'Cause according to Jay,” Barton interrupted, eyebrows raised pointedly. “You've been poking holes in the security around here every which way just to seal 'em up tight."

"You should still--"

"So the way I figure it, if I've got you watching my back in addition to everybody else…” He let the sentence dangle there until he gave up on it with a shrug. "Anybody lurking in deep dark corners around here is just looking to be a little shit. Which was not punishable by death last time I checked."

Bucky felt his irritation simmering up to the top even as he registered on some level that Barton was implying that he felt safe in the Tower because _Bucky_ made it safe, and another part of him recognized that Barton was just winding him up, waiting to see how far he could go before Bucky snapped.

Inhaling deeply through his nose, Bucky rolled his shoulders back and made a conscious effort to school his features into something that didn’t scream Murderous Intent, because the quickest way to throw Barton off his game, and thereby regain control of the situation, was to just ignore Barton’s game altogether.

“We do this,” Bucky muttered lowly, as intimately as he dared. “I get to take care of you.”

Barton stepped back, and his laidback stance began to morph into something shyer, meeker.  “I mean, that’s the idea, yeah.”

Gaining confidence, Bucky continued, “I get to spoil you.”

Barton brought a hand up to rub at the back of his neck restlessly, his eyes darting down to avoid Bucky’s. “Uh, yeah, I mean, if you want…Not that--that is--”

“Okay,” Bucky cut in with a quirk of his lips, there and gone again.

“O-kay?” Barton questioned, a hesitant stutter to it that belied his confusion.

“I’m in,” Bucky declared. Barton’s eyes shot up to lock with his own, and he seemed honestly shocked, like Bucky’d really go through all this, with the researching and the digging and the clarifying, and still back out. And, well. That just wouldn’t do.

Stepping in close enough that they could share a breath, Bucky let his voice drop into a purr, something that felt familiarly flirty. “So tell me more about what you like. How do I make you fly, doll?”

Barton’s breathing paused tellingly for a moment, and his pupils blew out wide while blood rushed up to stain the tops of his cheeks. It was a very good look on him, Bucky decided. One he’d have to do his best to keep putting there. Seemed a worthy enough mission, even by the Soldier’s standards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I pulled the Russian off of Google Translate, so it's likely not at all accurate. Apologies to any Russian-fluent readers!
> 
> Here's the translations:
> 
>  
> 
> _“This man, he has been very naughty, Soldier. He needs to learn the error of his ways. And for him to do that, you have to punish him.”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“Punish him how?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“Mmm, however you see fit, Soldier. Whatever it takes to make sure the lesson sinks in, yes?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _"Yes."_


End file.
